Tag: green peppers

Patatas a lo pobre – Potatoes and green peppers

The trick with this dish is to stew the peppers and potatoes slowly in olive oil. We had this with grilled pork chops.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 250ml good olive oil 
  • 3 onions, sliced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, sliced
  • 3 green peppers, roughly chopped
  • 1kg firm potatoes, peeled, halved lengthways and then sliced 
  • salt and pepper
  • a pinch of fennel seeds, optional. 
  • 4 bay leaves, optional

METHOD:

  • In a large pan or casserole dish, heat the oil over a lowish heat. 
  • Start cooking the potatoes in the oil, and when they start to cook and soften a bit, add the onions, peppers, garlic, fennel seeds, bay leaves, grated black pepper and a good pinch of salt. Simmer for around 15 minutes. 
  • Drain off the oil using a sieve, set the oil aside for further use. 
  • Serve with pork or lamb chops. 

Chicken, pepper and mushroom stew

We were given a marrow, a vegetable that I am not that confident with. We made stuffed marrow rings, and I didn’t get it right, so you’ll need to wait for a more successful version. Just to say that the marrow was not well-cooked. The redeeming feature was this stew, which I made to be the stuffing. We ended up eating it with couscous. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 250g chicken
  • 1 onion
  • 1 green pepper
  • 250g mushrooms
  • vegetable oil
  • 1 can chopped tomatos
  • 500ml stock
  • 2 tsp cornflour (I mixed marigold stock powder with the cornflour before adding water)
  • salt and pepper
  • a good pinch of paprika
  • a good handful of chopped mint and dill (or 1 tsp each of dried mint and dill)

METHOD

  • Prepare all the ingredients. Chop the chicken into small pieces. Chop the onion finely. Core the pepper, remove the seeds and slice. Prepare the mushrooms and slice coarsely. 
  • Heat the oil in a casserole dish, and when it is hot,  gently fry the onion and peppers until soft. 
  • Add the chicken and mushroom, and fry for a further 4 minutes or so until the chicken is sealed. 
  • Meanwhile, mix a little stock with the cornflour to make a smooth paste, and then add the paste back to the stock and mix. 
  • Add the tomatoes to the chicken in the pan, and bring to a simmer
  • Add the stock, paprika, salt and pepper and herbs. Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the stew starts to thicken. 
  • Cover the casserole and cook in a moderate oven for 20 minutes max.

Serve with couscous and garnished with chopped herbs, such as parsley and dill. 

Menemen – Turkish dish of peppers, eggs and tomatoes.

We are about to go on holiday to Istanbul, so I was looking at Turkish recipes. This caught my eye, as I had a couple of green peppers from Tagsa Uist Grow your Community at East Camp. Very tasty, very easy. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 small onions, thinly sliced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 small green peppers, halved, seeded and sliced. 
  • 2 dried chilli peppers, crushed
  • 400g can of chopped tomatoes
  • 4 eggs
  • Could include herbs such as thyme, oregano, spices such as cumin
  • chopped parsley
  • Sour cream or greek yoghurt

METHOD:

  • Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan, and add the onions, then the garlic, and then the pepper and chillies. Fry slowly until the onions are soft. 
  • Add the tomatoes and any additional herbs and spices, and simmer slowly to reduce the mixture. Season with salt and pepper
  • Make 4 holes in the mixture, and into each hole, crack an egg. Cover the pan and cook slowly for around 5 minutes to cook the eggs. (You can scramble the eggs into the mixture as an alternative.) 
  • Beat the yogurt or sour cream with salt and pepper. 
  • Sprinkle the menemen with parsley, and serve from the pan with the yoghurt or sour cream. 
 

La Piperade (eggs, peppers and tomatoes)

This is an Elizabeth David recipe, and it is a classic. I made it because one lot of neighbours had grown some splendid green peppers in their polytunnel, and another lot have the most fantastic free-range eggs. This serves 2, but it is easy to scale up the recipe according to the availability of ingredients, or number of people to feed.

INGREDIENTS:

  • olive oil
  • One small onion, finely sliced
  • 3 green peppers, cut into strips
  • 1 can organic chopped tomatoes (or, even better, use 500g fresh locally grown tomatoes, skinned and chopped)
  • 1 clove chopped garlic
  • Salt, pepper
  • 2 eggs, beaten

METHOD:

  • Heat a generous amount of oil or dripping in a large frying pan, and then cook the sliced onion until it begins to turn yellow.
  • Add the strips of green pepper, and cook on medium for up to 15 minutes.
  • Add the tin of chopped tomatoes, garlic, and salt and pepper. Some people add a little basil at this stage as well.
  • Cook until the tomatoes are in a pulp, and the mixture is good and thick.
  • Add the beaten eggs and stir until the mixture begins to thicken, like scrambled eggs.

Serve on a heated dish. This is good with toast and bacon or ham.